


nothing burns like the cold

by kunnskat



Series: Winter was Here [7]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arya Stark at the Wall, BAMF Arya Stark, Faked Abduction, Faked Murder, Gen, Jojen Reed is a Good Sibling, Many Actual Murders, Meera Reed is the Best Sibling, Ned Stark Lives, Ned Stark Refuses Post as Hand, POV Arya Stark, POV Jojen Reed, POV Ned Stark, POV Sansa Stark, Pre-War of the Five Kings, Queen Arya Stark, Ramsay Bolton is His Own Warning, Readable for Free on AO3, The Faceless Men, The Red Wedding is Avenged, Time Travel, Tyrion Lannister is a Good Sibling, officially a Mature story now folks, the starks survive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:07:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22866823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunnskat/pseuds/kunnskat
Summary: Changes minor or big, butterflies flapping their wings. Arya Stark changes the world she knows and the world she doesn't, all by existing in a time of before.Drabbles. No or little continuation for each.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Jon Snow, Arya Stark & Meera Reed & Jojen Reed, Arya Stark & Sansa Stark, Bran Stark & Sansa Stark, Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark, Meera Reed & Jojen Reed, Mentions of Joffrey Baratheon/Arya Stark
Series: Winter was Here [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/796398
Comments: 8
Kudos: 96





	1. making an example

**Author's Note:**

> In the midst of writing mini outtakes for safety I found myself writing small drabbles for other various ideas. So I decided I would make this a set of just those where I could post whatever I thought up no matter how short. That way they don't all live in my google docs for eternity, waiting for me to try for more.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya takes Sansa's place. The Reed siblings deviate from their path after Jojen sees her return.

“He wanted to make an example of me in front of the court,” she tells them as if it does not matter, that her torn dress and obvious wounds is nothing, “-so I made an example of them, in turn.” 

The crown dangled in her free hand is let go of and the clinging of its metal upon stone as it makes its own way to the newcomers, spinning on the ground, is all that is heard ‘til it stops before her cousin and his Targaryen relatives. 

“You’re welcome,” she adds blandly, rising as soon as her arm is wrapped properly. Her dress hides little, but that is no longer a problem when Meera reappears with a cloak, helping her fasten it over the evidence of the day. Meera is already wearing hers, and Jojen accepts another even as people begin to shout like idiots. The Reed siblings follow her as Nymeria had as a pup even as she tries to leave without the rest noticing due to their argument. 

Jon notices, though. He always has. 

“Sister,” he says haltingly, uncertainty clear. But is he asking if she wishes to have anything to do with him, if he is still her brother or if she is alright? Perhaps it is all three, and furthermore. 

“Walk with us,” Arya tells him, slowing her gait only so that he can catch up with them. “You can tell me about your adventures in the meantime, brother.” 

“Please, tell me what happened first, you told me you wished to never marry,” and yet here he returns to Westeros with the other rightful heirs to the throne, ready to take it from the Lannisters. And here he finds the little girl he’d loved since birth, sitting on the steps before the throne with a crown in hand and the dead at her feet. 

“It was either me or Sansa and she didn’t deserve that cruelty no matter how stupid she might be, I tricked him into choosing me and Robert Baratheon was still so into the woman I look like that he granted it on the spot,” if anyone’s ever deserved her honestly, it will always be Jon. Though she does not act like it, she has missed him ever since he left. Perhaps before, even. “Joffrey was an idiot, a cruel, stupid child. Someone had to keep him distracted, and his stupid bitch mother too.”

“You needn’t fear so,” Jojen interrupts, looking at Jon like he can read something on his face that Arya can’t. A stupid assumption, Arya will always know Jon best, but Jojen is used to knowing everything so she doesn’t hold it against him. Arya knows full well all the fears in Jon’s head, but they don’t have time to reassure him. Not unless he comes with them. 


	2. to meet her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jojen must deviate from the path he has been set upon when he sees what will happen if he does not.

Meera gazes down at him, concern in his eyes, but she says nothing even as her brother takes the moment to close his eyes and think of what he has seen. 

“Well?” Tyrion is not so patient, now that he knows why it happens. Jojen suspects that he remembers too well the tales of the dead and the night coming upon them. Even safely behind the wall, though how safe remains to be seen, he fears. Tyrion is a smart man, no doubt he is the one to have inherited any smarts left in the Lannister line. 

“So long as your sister lives, we will all die.”

But he is not so smart as to heed the words Jojen offer. Already, he can see him try to plot a way for Cersei to see reason, for Jaime to persuade her, for his siblings to somehow survive the shitshow their lives are becoming. He will fail. 

“Bring me to Arya Stark,” he whispers to his sister, uncaring that he is heard by others. It matters not, so long as they don’t get in the way. His sister will see him to King’s Landing safely. He has seen it. 

Meera nods silently, as always, trusting him with their lives and not seeing that he is trusting her with them. He hopes she learns to love as deeply as she would have in the future they will no longer have. It might not be Bran Stark, but he cares not so long as she is happy. Jojen believes the Starks will see her safe all the same.


	3. ranger or deserter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon was always meant to go beyond the Wall.

“Name him a ranger, Lord Commander,” she bids him, though she knows he will not be so easily convinced. Jon had told her of him before. Still, she must try and succeed for the consequences of not doing this is something she has already lived once before. She refuses to do it once again. 

“He knows nothing of it,” the man tells her, no doubt humoring her. 

“He knows nothing of much, but he will learn. We will find our uncle while we are out there, and discover what has halted his return.”

“You know much for a little girl,” otherwise she would not have known of her uncle’s supposed fate. Yes, she will bring up whatever she must to get what she wants. She has no intention of truly using it against them, but they needn’t know that. 

“I do, and much more. He will follow me no matter what you say, so you might as well ensure that his return will not end with his death. You like him, don’t you?”

“A deserter chooses his own fate.”

“But a ranger is not deserting, he is merely ranging,” how stubborn. Well, she’d expected it. Men do always think they know best even when they don’t. 

“And why would I keep a man who would follow someone else over the watch?”

“Because all of you are the same, no matter what you say of your refusal to be a part of the many wars. You have not gone to Essos to claim men there, as you do here in Westeros. Rapists, killers, the lot of them you take. But only from here.”


	4. lady of winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bran had spoken the words their aunt had given their father only once, but for the look it had put on Jon's face Arya would never forget them.

“Winter bade us reach out once more. We expected nothing from it as all the times we’ve tried before, but for some reason, the Lord Commander deigned to listen,” there’s something entirely unimpressed in the words of the Wildling King. There is history there, Ned is certain of it. But it matters none so long as he is the one to decide what will happen from this. And Ned is required to give them the time to speak their case not just as Lord of Winterfell but as the Stark given words no other living should know. 

It is a fool’s mistake to believe they come from the one that had spoken them first, but he cannot help but hope all the same, and finds himself angered by it. He knows better, there must have been someone else who had heard, but grief has never been rational even long after a loss. 

Heartache is eternal, his father had once told them, one will never be rid of it. 

“Tell me again what she looked like,” he bids the King beyond the Wall, despite all his knowing. He simply cannot help himself, even the more fool he seems. If there was ever a chance, he must be certain for true. 

Ned had been the one to bring her home and lay her in the crypts, he had carried her babe into Winterfell and sworn to protect him, he had given her his word. He knows this cannot be her, but the words the man uses to describe the lady of Winter are the very same Ned would use for Lyanna. And only his sister ought to have known the words she spoke to him then, that he had never shared with any other. 

Yet the lady of Winter had spoken them to Mance Ryder and bid him tell the Lord of Winterfell those very words. 


	5. heading North

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya of the future is spotted before, during or after several counts of murder which she may or may not be responsible for. Her father, though he doesn't know it, is searching out every word spoken of the woman that looks just like his dead sister with hope and fear in his heart.

“What news?”

“The Freys are dead, nearly the whole lot of them, my Lord,” the boy shifts on his feet, nerves showing. That’ll have to be trained out of him, but Ned says nothing of it. It will be taken care of.

“How? What happened?”

“Poison, my Lord, the servants speak of the same woman that was seen in Kings Landing.”

“She is heading North,” Catelyn carefully points out, wariness half her reason he full well knows. She suspects he will take leave to go find her himself. If he were not the Lord of Winterfell, she would be right. Unfortunately, his sons are not yet old enough to swing the sword and so duty commands him to stay for a while still.

“She will pass through Moat Caitlin if so,” and there is a thought. Howland would be able to confirm or deny his fears and hopes with ease if he can only get a look at her. And possibly even figure out if the many murders are her doing and why. 

The Lyanna he had known and loved had cared little for Robert even betrothed as they were, she would not have killed Cersei Lannister for marrying him in her place. And the Freys? She may have cared little for them too, but there would be no reason for her to poison them all. 

Every word of her he receives gives him hope, and yet every word of her he receives speaks of differences. He can tell she is Lyanna reborn without ever looking at her, yet she cannot be. 

“And should Lord Reed write confirming your thoughts?”

“I will ask them to travel here,” his wife has grown to know him well, but this ought to pacify her. However, he will be riding out to meet them should she truly be who he thinks. 


	6. answer their prayers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is set in a world where Arya returns to before the King and company visits Winterfell, before they get their direwolves. In this, Cersei hears of this wolf girl so similar to her aunt and fears this girl might be what takes her throne from her. She sends an assassin, a faceless man, but this person recognizes something within the girl and gives her an offer. Arya takes it and they leave Winterfell. She takes the chance to hunt stags for their meals on the way to the wall for another assignment and thus saves the mother direwolf.  
> Busy searching for her, Ned refuses post as Hand. Drama happens as always with Lannisters and the King and his people leave Winterfell with no Hand and no Sansa. Sansa wants to go but she also wants her sister found and Joffrey was rather cruel about the topic. She dares not protest when her father lays down the law - Sansa is staying in Winterfell where they can keep her safe. No Stark is allowed to leave Winterfell alone. Jon does not join the Watch. 
> 
> Sansa POV.

They sit together in the Godswoods, every last one of them, waiting for the Gods to answer their prayers.

It hadn’t always been so, though most of them have prayed before the Old Gods before they hadn’t woken up early to sit there before breaking fast. They hadn’t come by every day to sit in silence and do their own thing in this manner. It would never have been this silent then, Sansa thinks, trailing her gaze over her family. 

Father does not spend as much time caring for Ice as he does the skinny little sword Jon had said he’d had made for her sister. There is no running into the Godswoods giggling with her siblings only to hush at his presence, then grin at each other when he only looks at them and smiles. 

Father does not smile as much as he had before. And to think she’d thought he did not smile much at all, a somber and dutiful man. She understands, none of them smile as much anymore after everything. Jon does not smile at all. 

Eventually, one by one, they get up and leave to break fast and return to their duties. Mother, ever the strong woman that raised them, gets up first. She takes Rickon, their wildest sibling only ever sits still for this, by the hand and asks about his plans for the day as they go. He makes her smile, one of the few that still can, when he tells her he’s not going to lessons because he’d promised to help the Maester later if he could spend the day with his siblings. 

Robb rises next, the ever-present self-hatred barely masked as he quietly excuses himself to join mother and Rickon. He still blames himself so much for all of it, Sansa hurts to see it but he never listens no matter what they say to him. Theon quietly follows, not as much of the same faith but still there. Not blood, but enough family to care.

Sansa herself is next, and as always she asks Bran if he’d like to come. Sometimes he does, sometimes he does not. Still, she asks every time. The times he does, she knows father will return to them next. The times he doesn’t, it is Jon that comes after. Some days Sansa thinks that Jon is incapable of grieving in front of them and that Bran chooses to go with Sansa when he needs to be on his own the most. Today is not one such day, so Sansa nods quietly and leaves the three. Her mother greets her with love in her eyes at the table and she tries not to think about how she probably wishes it were her sister. It is only fair, given all the times she too has wished that it were her sister calling her name, her sister smiling at her, her sister hugging her. They all do it, they are part of the prayers that do not end when they leave the Godswoods. 

But that little girl has been missing for years with no sign of her. 

Westeros has kept moving, births and marriages and deaths all. Sansa is betrothed again, but not to a Prince that hadn’t even cared that her sister is missing. She has been promised to the heir of a Lord offering to help keep up the search, it had been her own idea. Robb, too, has been found a spouse. A young girl from a good, strong Northern house. 

Jon travels often, unable to stay still for long when he could be out there looking for her. She never knows if she’ll see him home or not, nor does she know which she truly prefers. They’ve lost one sibling, she doesn’t want to lose another even if it’s a half-brother. On the days she thinks she might forget what she was like, Sansa will look at Jon and remember. They’d always been together, each other’s favourite. 

He takes the skinny sword with him every time he rides out and whenever he brings it home with him they know he hasn’t found her. Still, it is better than to not see it at all and know that she is dead. Sansa’s heart is in her throat each time she hears he has returned. It hurts, but it will be worse when she is wedded and sent south, forced to wait for a raven to bring her news.

Still, for the chance that they might find her with more help, it must be worth it. Sansa must love her sister enough to give her all or she won’t know what to do.

If only Arya would come back through those gates with a grin of mischief and a skinny sword by her side, they would all be happy then.


	7. what death looks like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returned to her childhood well before the appearance of their direwolves, Arya fakes her abduction and then her murder by Ramsay Snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for the actions of Ramsay Snow and his very hungry dogs.

Arya has spent years killing, she knows what it looks like. It’s bodies, it’s blood, it’s the stench of death itself. It’s rumpled bedsheets and broken furniture and an obvious escape route for the killer. Everything hinges on the smaller details, however. Is there a weapon left behind? How is the body displayed? How much blood is there in truth, what does it say of how they died? Hells, even the expression on the face implies things. And Maesters would know most of these things, too.

That is why Arya does not get dressed, make a rope out of her sheets and jump out the window. No, if she wants to do what she must then she cannot let them think she left on her own however doubtful it would be at her current age. The sheets are dragged half off the bed, one pillow ripped open, a little blood smeared on the door. It will look like she was taken and someone managed to evade their guards to do it. Herself she sneaks out the window, ensuring it is closed with one hand as she dangles with the other. 

Only dark clothing over her sleeping gown hides her from sight as she carefully climbs sideways and then down. She jumps slightly so that the footsteps left behind in the large shoes she’d grabbed looks like just another set from a guard passing by. She has mere moments to find a hiding place before they do pass by but that is the easy part. This is the Winterfell she’d grown up in, but even still if it were not, she’ll always know every version of her home. 

Leaving through the gates before the dark lifts is just as easy, though it very much shouldn’t be. This body is not as trained and she is not as good that she should get away with it, but it is her only option and she has always managed through sheer force of will before.

In the end it takes longer, daylight shining upon her footsteps, than she’d like to come across a man to kill, shove the boots on and bloody her nightgown with. The body will stall the search for the time she needs to take his horse and get further away. But horses can be tracked easier and it is only when she reaches the edge of the forest that she halts, pets its mane and whispers to it, “go far and fast, follow the path North to the Wall,” though she thinks they’ll find it before it gets that far. Someone passing it by will force it to halt if only because it could grant them some coin. 

Still, it might give her the time she needs. She just needs to get to Hornwood - and if her choice of town is interestingly close to Dreadfort and the traitors, well, it’d be stupid to not use the opportunity she has granted herself. 

Crossing the White Knife is a pain with the little supplies she has but it is faster than going up and won’t get her caught like going down. The Sheepshead Hills are no safer or better, but Arya thinks she may be in luck when she hears dogs and horses and a man’s laughter barely covering the sounds of someone running like their life depends on it.

Shedding the clothes for the bloodied nightgown, she hides the clothes and supplies up a tree and herself behind it. This is how Ramsay Snow’s dogs find her.

The boy laughs and calls her pitiful, but she might be fun judging by the blood on her and so he'll take her back with him. The girl is an unexpected part of the hunting but for Arya that just means one more person to kill. And she does, gutting her with the knife they hadn't expected. It distracts the dogs, which helps ensure Ramsay gets off his horse. She can tell he thinks he'll be able to kill her with his sword before she can get him with the knife. 

He doesn't.

The horse has clearly been trained to stay despite violence, she mockingly thanks the corpse as she dumps him on after getting her supplies. The dogs are still plenty distracted, only one tries to go for her when she drags off her nightgown and starts ripping it to pieces. She kills it and leaves that, too, for the rest of them to feed on. 


End file.
